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Class Schedules

I was looking on the lexicon for what classes various houses had together. This is what I know:

The Slytherins and Gryffindors have DADA, Care of Magical Creatures, and Potions together.

The Gryffindors have Herbology with the Hufflepuffs.

What classes do you think Hufflepuff and Slytherin have together? Do you think the class pairings change by year? For instance, one year, would the Hufflepuffs have a class with Ravenclaw, but then the next year have it for Slytherin. In addition, for the NEWT classes, do you just have it with everyone, from every house, who has that NEWT?

As far as electives go, I always though all four houses took them together. Just for the simple reason that there probaly wouldn't be enough students to fill a whole class if it was made up of only one, or even two Houses.

Actually the Gryffindors don't have DADA with anyone. Remus appears to only be teaching them, and I imaginbe it's to do with the size of the classrooms and equipment needed.
DADA and Transfiguration probably require a lot of room, so where you have a whole House group - you'd only teach them. And Divination looks to be all Gryff - although that's elective.

At NEWT level, there are fewer students. There are four Ravenclaws, four Slytherins, three Gryffindors and one Hufflepuff in Slughorn's class for instance.

I don't think the class pairings change year by year, certainly Harry seems to always have Herbology with the Puffs, but I guess Fred and George could have Potions with Puffs or something.

In addition, for the NEWT classes, do you just have it with everyone, from every house, who has that NEWT?

Yes, I believe that's the way it works. Because people from all the Houses are choosing the classes they want to take, it wouldn't make sense for the Professors to teach by House alone (what if only one Ravenclaw wants to take a specific NEWT, for example?)

"Oh, it's been all right," said Luna. " A bit lonely without the D.A.
Ginny's been nice, though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration
class calling me 'Loony' the other day --"

Of course this could mean that it was before the class on the corridor, but it sounds more like they actually have Transfiguration together. What I thought was – there must be larger and smaller years, like... there's five boys and three girls in Gryffindor in Harry's year, but maybe there's only two boys and two girls in Ginny's. And if there are few Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, then maybe it would make sense for them to have them have some of the classes (or at least the theory sessions of classes) together.

This completely gorgeous banner, which makes me happier than a squirrel, was made by Hokey

Are the arrangements necessarily the same from year to year? I'd imagine the schedules would switch up based on room availability, class size, other classes the students are taking, other requirements the professors have and who knows what else. Certainly, the arrangements for NEWT-level and even OWL-level would have to change based on who's signed up for what.

I think the main source of confusion behind this is the movies. Example: Gryffindors are shown having classes with Slytherins in Transfiguration (CoS) DADA (PoA, GoF, OOtP,) Potions (PS, HBP) Herbology (CoS) Care of Magical Creatures (PoA) and Divination (PoA) which rules out almost all of Harry's classes except charms. I think it suited the purposes of the writers because then we could have Harry/Draco conflicts, but I also think JKR might have paired the Slyths up with the Gryffs more to make the conflicts and prejudices stand out more.

Really, I'd leave it up to the discretion of the author. It's always nice not to have the Slyths and Gryffs paired up, but pair up whichever houses you need to suit your purposes. As long as the Gryffindors aren't paired up with Slytherin all the time (which does seem rather cliched), you could get away with almost every pairing, as there doesn't seem to be any consistency in the pairings JKR writes in the books. This would also hold true with other eras (Marauder, Next Gen), where I'm sure there would be certain conflicts between houses you may like to show.

I think the main source of confusion behind this is the movies. Example: Gryffindors are shown having classes with Slytherins in Transfiguration (CoS) DADA (PoA, GoF, OOtP,) Potions (PS, HBP) Herbology (CoS) Care of Magical Creatures (PoA) and Divination (PoA) which rules out almost all of Harry's classes except charms.

In the PS movie, the Gryffindors have Charms with the Slytherins as well. The scene in which Dean blows up his feather when they practice levitating comes to mind.

If memory serves me correctly, Gryffindors have had Potions with Slytherins every year that we've seen a Potions lesson. And they did have Care of Magical Creatures together in their third year (Malfoy/Buckbeak incident).

I agree that it would be different for NEWT level courses because there would be too few students from any one or two houses.

In my books I always made the assumption that the core subjects were taught to two houses at once (ie, possibly Ravenclaws and Gryffindors take Charms in their third year), and that the groupings changed around from year to year. The only exception to this being Potions, which is always Slytherin and Gryffindor, because Dumbledore felt that no other house could effectively put up with Snape and the Slytherins - or perhaps because Severus demands it so he can constantly show the Gryffindors up.

Elective subjects I have always seen as simply containing all four houses, mixed together. This is inadvertently balanced by pupil preferences - so Hufflepuffs choose Muggle Studies more often than Gryffindors do, and far more often that Slytherins do, more Gryffindors take Care of Magical Creatures, and more Ravenclaws take Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.

NEWT classes, as has already been established, generally appear to be a mix of all houses. Perhaps they throw extra ones for particularly popular subjects.

The only contrary factor to this that springs to mind, is the Boggart class taught by Lupin, which solely mentions Gryffindor students (in actual fact the same occurs in CoS, in one of Binn's classes, but that is less evident). I always assumed in this instance that Gryffindors were simply mentioned because Harry knows them best, but I would be more than willing to accept the notion that this class was taken by one house at a time. Personally though, I operate with two houses, since it fits the time constraints of teachers rather better. If Lupin teaches two DAtDA classes a week, for each house, for five years and then at least four more for NEWTS then that doesn't leave a lot of time to be talking to Harry!